Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKVtN7ocQ48&list=PLOQvdw7d0cd9RZZkd2lZy2hmrnJv-cfLI&index=34
Evan Snow: On this episode of the Choose954 podcast, we are back here on the Choose954 podcast, episode 66, with one of my favorite human beings on this planet, Chloe Revell, aka The Gemini Rising, our upcoming AAF creatives and speaker this Friday morning at General Provision.
If you didn’t know about Choose954, we started a social movement to cultivate culture and community, to keep people in the know with all the great things that are going on, in an effort to make this a better place to live and not just a better place to vacation. The point of the podcast is to connect you with interesting people like her to find out more interesting stuff that goes on in the community. We have a real treat for you this Friday morning, as you’re going to find out about. But without much further ado, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself at a high level?
Chloe Revell: Thank you, Evan. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. It is so awesome to just be in a space like this and a little bit out of my comfort zone, being featured here on a podcast.
My name is Chloe Revell, everyone, and I am a yogi. I'm a meditation teacher as well as a mindset coach. I’m also a community organizer. I’m really passionate about bringing people together, and that’s why I love your brand so much and what’s been happening here in Fort Lauderdale. Anyone who’s been living here for the last, I don’t know, I’ve been here for 10 years, but between now and then, so much transformation has shifted, and just seeing communities come together in these amazing events like on Friday. So thank you for having me there too.
Evan Snow: My pleasure. Thank you so much. How did you get started in all this crazy world of mindfulness and yoginess that we’re a part of now here?
Chloe Revell: Well, it was truly all meant to be. During my college years, I was dealing with a lot of stress, just navigating life and looking for a solution to this chronic anxiety that I would just be facing pretty much at every turn in every corner of my life. Luckily, one day I realized I was having difficulty breathing. As simple as that, I noticed that I was holding my breath in moments when I was very tense, or my breath was really rapid when I was highly stressed. I mentioned it to my friend, and she suggested, "Hey, do you want to come to a yoga class with me?" I was like, "That’s pretty new for me. Never tried that before." It was so synchronistic. I went, and that was the beginning of so much.
At that moment, I had no idea what was in store for me in terms of the kind of transformation I would undergo over those first three years, where it was just so much about empowering myself, my own thinking, and my own tools to self-regulate and become more aware of my emotions. Yoga became a beautiful daily practice for me that allowed me to get to know myself better. Over time, I started to notice, "Okay, I know what to do when my breath is really shallow. I know how to prepare myself before an exam or before a podcast with beautiful deep breaths in and out."
Then I landed in South Florida a couple of years after college and started connecting with the yoga community. Within months, I was in a teacher training for my own betterment and personal development, and I left the teacher training wanting to share this amazing practice with others. So it’s been about eight years of teaching at this point, and the yoga then developed into my fascination with meditation, breath work, aromatherapy, and sound healing, which I’ll share with you guys in a little bit later.
But truly, the world of wellness and getting connected to yourself from a holistic standpoint provides so many resources that I feel like people aren’t as tapped into as they could be. So that’s my mission: to keep spreading awareness about all the holistic ways we can inform our self-care, take care of our mind, body, and ultimately our spirit, to live our best life. I’m so excited to be sharing that with all of you.
Evan Snow: This is very serendipitous and meaningful for me. For those who don’t know, Chloe was my first yoga instructor here at Society Las Olas. Thankfully, the universe placed you in this place, although we knew each other from years before in MASS District. Your approach, your warmth, your ease of instruction—it allowed me, as a novice, to gravitate to this vinyasa flow, to this practice, which now has had profound impacts on my life. Now we work together, and Chloe’s been coaching me for the last couple of months, for which I’m very grateful. It’s truly something I can never advocate enough for. I’ve now kind of become a yoga advocate, and I really want to spread these gifts and spread the wellness, which we’re going to do this Friday. So I’m forever grateful for the impact you’ve had on me. But for those that might not know, what is kind of like your why behind this work that you’re doing, aside from the feeling of wholeness and the warm feeling that you get inside and better oxidation of your breath and your blood?
Chloe Revell: First, I’m so happy to see your own transformation. Yoga is for everyone, and there are so many different styles of yoga and breath work—ones that can soothe your nervous system, others where you can hold your breath for a long time. We know the Wim Hof Method is very popular these days. So there’s a large scope of different practices that we can tap into, and that’s why I say yoga and meditation are for everyone. It’s just a matter of finding the teacher you resonate with.
My why is truly connected to my belief that everyone is worthy of living a life of health, well-being, abundance, and success. That was really important for me and was something embedded in me in my childhood. I was so lucky to have an amazing upbringing with parents and grandparents who were always of service to others. That was my example: How do we make the world a better place? How do we make our community a better place?
My parents both immigrated to this country in their early life, before the age of 10, and they received so much support coming to the U.S. from Latin America. They were always about paying it forward. From a very young point in my life, that belief was just ingrained in me. As I grew up and saw how many injustices there were, specifically in the healthcare system—if you think about mental health, we’re now seeing a revolution of bringing more awareness to the importance of mental health. But truly, growing up for me, I was dealing with anxiety issues, and I saw my colleagues and people around me dealing with depression and different stress-related illnesses. I watched our traditional medical system not having enough resources to support that, and we know how easily people are turned to pharmaceuticals. There has to be something else we can be doing before we get to that point.
That’s not to say that medication isn’t needed for all people or can’t be helpful in certain situations, but we need to look at alternative ways to take care of our body. My why is really connected to spreading awareness that we have more control over our health and well-being than we’re typically led to believe. It’s about educating and sharing that knowledge. When I found yoga and meditation, I thought, "Whoa, this is life-changing." So how do we keep sharing that in a way that’s sometimes bite-sized for people? Because not everyone is meant to travel to India for 30 days and be fully immersed. Some people are, and that’s great if you get the opportunity to travel to India or Bali for a teacher training—please do. But sometimes it’s as simple as, "Oh, the condo I live in has a free yoga class on Monday night at 7 o’clock. Let me try it out." What’s that about? It doesn’t have to be the most rigorous kind of yoga either. It can be enough movement that allows you to connect your breath to the movement and get you into that present moment, disconnecting from the devices and the phones and all of the things so that you can just turn your attention inward and nourish in that capacity.
Evan Snow: We do live in a very modern world, so that’s needed. There are plenty of tools and resources available. Aside from the ones you’ve already mentioned, I think this would be a great opportunity to mention our dear friend Dr. Joe Dispenza, who, if you aren’t aware, shows how the power of the mind can heal many things. We both encourage you to look up "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself" and any of his work, YouTube videos, etc.
For those who might not be familiar with meditation, breath work, or sound bowl healing—people have probably seen yoga—would you be so kind as to show us something? Maybe a little demonstration?
Chloe Revell: Sure. Before I play the bowl, let me say that there are so many different ways to meditate. It’s about disconnecting from the busyness of your own thinking and your own mind, allowing space to be still and present with your thoughts. Meditation doesn’t have to be seated; it can be moving. But the idea is to step outside the framework of, "At 10 p.m., I’m doing this, and tomorrow morning, I’m doing that," and allow spaciousness to come forth.
For me, meditation was very challenging, as it is for most people. I would see my guru and teachers sit in meditation for hours, and I thought, "I don’t know if that’s for me. I don’t know if that’s ever going to be me," because the nature of my mind is that it’s always racing. I attributed it to being a Gemini Rising, or a New Yorker, or other things, but truly, I hadn’t tapped into the magic of stilling those fluctuations of my mind through a practice like meditation.
Yoga was great because it taught me how to breathe and move. When I was ready to get into a more serious seated meditation practice, I came across sound bowl therapy. Sound healing is truly amazing because you are in the frequency of whatever’s being played. Each bowl has a different note that is attuned to a specific energy center in your body. This bowl is tuned to the C note, which is for our root chakra. What’s fascinating about the bowls, from the most simplistic point of view, is that you’re able to focus on what you’re hearing—the sensory experience of it all—so you’re no longer ruminating on that thought pattern. I thought, "Aha, here it is! Maybe I can meditate if I’m surrounded by vibrations and frequencies." We can talk later about how these different frequencies promote different feelings and sensations in your body, but from a simple standpoint, you’re no longer focused on your thoughts. You’re focused on the sound and how it makes you relax into the moment.
So, I’ll just play this very gently here. If you like, you can take a moment of mindfulness too—just close your eyes. Perhaps take a nice deep breath in and a deep breath out. Do that one more time, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Keeping your eyes closed, allow yourself to truly tune into this frequency and vibration of the singing bowl, and continue to breathe at a rate that feels natural and good for you. Effortless. Just call this a little break from your day to connect.
Here we go—breathe in, and breathe out... Inhale... Exhale... One more time—inhale... Exhale...
Allowing your shoulders to relax as you take one final breath here—a little longer inhale, and exhale. Now, gently opening your eyes and coming back to our lovely podcast.
Evan Snow: How much better do you feel? That’s all it takes—truly all it takes. Obviously, I teach classes where I bring all the bowls, and it’s a pure sound experience. I’ll be playing for 60 minutes, and it feels like it goes by so fast because we need that opportunity to switch off our nervous system—the electrical system of our body that governs everything we’re doing—and to rest, digest, and chill. But you can really benefit from just a minute or two of pausing during your day and tuning in. Some of my meditations, which I’m in the middle of recording to share with all of you guys, include the bowls and all that stuff. Or you can plug in your favorite YouTube meditator or whoever you’re finding on Spotify and just take that moment to disconnect, reset, and then get back to everyday living.
Amen. There are various ways to achieve that stillness too—Wim Hof breathing, different kinds of meditation, so many different things. Really, it’s whatever gives you that feeling of relief, that mind stillness. So we both encourage you to explore mindfulness and meditation—literally one of the most rewarding things you can do for free, with countless videos on YouTube. You just sit there, find a place, find some pillows, find some cushions, and you can develop this practice, which I did not have in my life six months ago. I’m forever grateful because it came at such a great time for me. As you guys know, I have a lot of projects, a lot of things to work on. It’s always go, go, go. I was doing that for years and starting to get burnt out. I was already burnt out, and this gift, this practice, this lifestyle—which I’ve now embraced and embodied and continually dive into—has yielded enormous results for me personally, professionally, and emotionally.
So I encourage you guys to consider trying meditation, consider developing a practice. Try it for a week, try it for a month, try it for however long you can. If you’d like to try it this Friday morning, we encourage you to come to AAF Creative Zen at 8:30 a.m. at General Provision’s downtown location. If you didn’t know about Creative Zen, we host a monthly breakfast lecture series—a mini TED Talk that we host for free for our creative community every second Friday morning of the month. We’ve been doing it for three-plus years now, and we’re very excited to be bringing it back in person. We were doing it online during the pandemic, but it’s not the same. We were still trying to pay it forward with positivity and inspiration. For those who don’t know, I had my aha moment at a talk very similar to this five and a half years ago, where I received some insight and inspiration that led me to this journey of discovering the arts, culture, community building, and creative entrepreneurship, which is why I still like to pay it back and pay it forward.
Amongst all the other stuff we do, this is one of the most important things to me—bringing in local people in our community, startup founders, yogis, gurus, and everybody else in between to share their thought-provoking, inspirational, and relatable stories. Everybody is a human being, just like everybody else is a human being. We keep it free; there’ll be coffee, breakfast bites, and some networking, but it’s not a businessy networking event. You don’t have to be creative—everybody’s welcome, everybody’s creative. The doors open at 8:30, the talk will start at 9, and you’ll be out of there by 10. If you need something to tell your boss, we’ve got a thing on the Facebook event page that says, "You’re gaining meaningful inspiration that you will bring back to your work, and you’re meeting like-minded professionals to network with." You’re connecting with your community. I’ve met some of my best friends, like Carla, through Creative Zen, and I’m forever grateful to host them and to have you speak.
It’s a free event; we just ask that you RSVP so we have an accurate headcount. If they would like to engage with you in other ways, what are some other things that people can connect and engage with you on?
Chloe Revell: Yes, well, I am starting a group coaching course this fall, which is going to be absolutely amazing. It’s going to combine all of the modalities that I teach in this beautiful fusion of a system that can be applied to your everyday life. It can help you, like your amazing testimonial, really tap into living a life of ease within everything that we’re doing in this modern way of living.
The group coaching course is starting this fall, and I’m happy to share more information about that with everybody on Friday. To follow that journey and sign up and learn a little bit more about my international wellness retreats as well, you can follow me on Instagram. I share a lot of my story, my perspective, and my process there. You can follow me at @thegeminirising_.
I’m sure you’ll tag me in all the things in between. Also, visit my website, chloerevell.com, where you’ll find information about the group coaching, regular yoga classes, and if you’re really looking to work with me one-on-one, I have a couple of spots opening up for the fall as well. If you’re looking for a deep dive on how to create more stability in your day and your everyday life with meditation, mindfulness, mindset coaching, sound healing, aromatherapy, yoga—there are so many tools. I customize the program based on where my client is at, and that’s the beautiful thing. So I’m so excited for Friday.
Evan Snow: And I’m so excited and grateful that you do let me customize what I want to work on. I’ve told her, "I want to initially start off improving and perfecting my yoga practice and then exploring deeper realms of mindfulness and meditation." Thankfully, when the time was right, you introduced me to Dr. Joe Dispenza, which was a whole game-changing mindset shift for me, and then other things like one-on-one sound healing. If you thought that was something, imagine a room with 20 of these bowls. Aromatherapy—I wasn’t so familiar with essential oils, and you’ve helped me implement them in a way that has been very therapeutic and rewarding for me.
So I strongly encourage and advocate reaching out to this young lady because you never know. We all go through our daily lives, we all go through our own stuff—highs and lows, highs and lows. We all need a little help along the way. I thought that I was grounded and balanced, and I was—from listening to TED Talks and going to TED Talks, hosting Creative Zen, and being involved in the arts. But these last six months since you helped bring these practices into my life, I don’t know what I was doing before. I can’t believe I made it this far without being grounded, without this balance, without this practice.
Also, not to mention, you guys don’t know this, but I was in a car accident and was about to get spinal surgery. I still go to the chiropractor, but thankfully, the yoga came into my life at a time when it provided a level of relief that allowed me to forgo the spinal surgery. I’m feeling better than ever. Other things that were bothering me have since subsided—problems with my shoulder, problems with my hips.
Just as we alluded to, you can pull up a YouTube video for various types of meditation—for anxiety, stress, waking up, an energetic day. You can pull up yoga videos on YouTube for free for anything—yoga for hips, yoga for back, yoga for tired legs, yoga for sleep. So if you want to find out more, I strongly encourage you to come this Friday morning to AAF Creative Zen at General Provision’s downtown location, right next to Society Las Olas. It’s a free event. You do have to pay for some parking—that’s downtown Fort Lauderdale life—but it will definitely be worth it. It’s a great opportunity to connect and engage with your local community, get inspired. We’re very glad to continue hosting it with support from the American Advertising Federation’s local chapter, which supports and advocates for creatives in the advertising industry—copywriters and everybody else in between. If you’d like to find out more, there will be people there from the American Advertising Federation, so maybe you can find a whole new community to tap into.
I would just encourage you—come with an open mind, come rested, and you never know how your life will change from a talk like this or from connecting with a beautiful soul like this. Anything else you want to let these beautiful folks know?
Chloe Revell: I just want to piggyback on what you said about thinking you were grounded enough or centered enough and already doing the work. That’s amazing, and what we learn from spiritual practice is that the universe is always expanding, and we have that limitless potential as well. So just when you thought life couldn’t get better than it is, it can. Keeping that open mind to try something new and connect with a new community is always the way to go. I’m so grateful that you’re helping create that for us, Evan, so thank you.
Evan Snow: Amen. It’s a beautiful thing. I strongly encourage you to follow along. You might see me on one of the upcoming retreats. We might be making some new upcoming retreats. If you have a friend that lives at Society Las Olas, join us for yoga on Monday nights at 7 o’clock, Wednesday mornings at 7:30, and the monthly sound healing session here. It’s a great perk—shameless free plug for Society—but really, it’s great. You never know how a little thing like some movement and stretching can really change your life, change your whole community, and all that. Thank you guys for tuning in. If you have any questions, I’m Evan Snow, @evansnow13, @choose954, or evan.choose954.com.
We’re continually looking for more people to highlight and feature on the podcast. We have a second series—an audio version on Spotify and all the great podcast platforms—hosted by our dear friend Niall Fortner, where he’s interviewing more local people with thought-provoking, relatable, and inspiring stories in our community. So we encourage you to check that out, and our Broward People section, hosted by Anita Mitchell, who’s also bringing some very fascinating stories to the community. That’s what it’s all about.
Thank you guys for your time, and we’re actually going to go flow right now. We’re going to go—see you guys. Namaste.
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